Moscow, Aug. 3 (PTI): The co-chairman of the India-Russia joint working group on terrorism and former KGB pointman in Delhi, Vyacheslav Ivanovich Trubnikov, has been appointed the new Russian ambassador to India.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a decree published today, appointed the 60-year-old Trubnikov. He replaces Alexander Kadakin.

A graduate of the prestigious Soviet Diplomatic Academy — an institute of international relations — Trubnikov is fluent in Hindi and English. He was posted in Delhi as the pointman of the former Soviet Union’s KGB’s foreign intelligence branch in the 1970s under the cover of a journalist.

Trubnikov rose to the post of director of Russia’s foreign spying agency — Sluzhba Vneshnoi Razvedki — in 1995.

His appointment assumes significance as he is well versed with security threats the country faces from neighbours.